June 28, 2011

I have never read anything close to Macedonio Fernandez’s novel, “The Museum of Eterna’s Novel (The First Good Novel)”. His style of writing is completly different to anything I have ever read before. I think it’s interesting and humorous that he calls it, “The First Good Novel”. That’s his opinion, and since he wrote the book one would hope he likes it. Of what I have read so far the novel is confusing. The whole time I was reading the begining I was waiting for the novel to finally start. After a few pages I look to see how long the introduction was and was shocked when I saw it went on for that many pages. It seems as if Fernandez never really wants to start the book; which would mean the book never ends if it never starts. For having suching a long introduction the book isn’t long at all which says a lot about Fernandez writing style and waiting he is trying to have this book do. This long introduction was put there for many different reasons. One could be that he wants to show the audience that there is more to a story than the actual story itself.

June 27, 2011

Samperio, “She Lived in a Story”

The story was crazy and difficult to understand. I liked that it was a short story; this made it somewhat easier to get through. If it would have been longer I would have gotten completly lost. Guillermo is a professor who gave a speech and now wants to write a story. He ends up writing a story about a girl named, Ofelia. Ofelia then intails writes a story about Guillermo writing a story about herself. It’s a trippy idea if you really think about. What made it so confussing was that the point of view kept changing throughout the story. I had to stop and re-read certain parts of the story becasue I was sure who was narrating at the current moment.

Borges, “Pierre Menard”

I noticed right away that this story is in first person narration, and is overt. However he is also questionable like many other writers. When I was reading this story there were a lot of words tha I didn’t know. I felt like I needed to sit with a dictionary next to me while I was reading. He uses a lot of big words in my opinion to throw the reader off. I think he is trying to confuse and challenge the reader. He also mentions a lot of famous intellectuals that some people may not have heard of before. Overall I found this story to be exagerated and confusing.

June 27, 2011

As I sit in this classroom, I write. The bic pen is of blue ink. My fingers move in a particular motion to make beautiful round letters, that turn to words. My handwriting is neat and legible. However my fingers arn’t they need to by manicured. My hand quickly moves accross the white lined paper; line after line complete. My fingers start to feel crampin up, getting tense and tired but still by penminship is still incredibly neat. Everyone sits, quickly writing away; taking a simple piece of paper and pen. The motion my hands and fingers make is amazing, I can do this without even thinking. This is so natural, it’s automatic. I hate having to cross things out and white out is a pain, therefore I cross out. It makes everything look so sloppy. It’s much easier to write without wearing any bracelets. There is no banging sound on the table. I love bracelets but not when I’m writing. I like to have a smooth surface when I am writing. Writing has a soothing and calming feeling that can make one instantly relaxed as they clear their mind as they write down their problems.

June 27, 2011

Remember…

I remember feeling very scared. We were driving carefully on a cold winters night. My boyfriend and I were very hungry as we drove to our favorite resteraunt. There was a small black car speeding up, going in and out of lanes. I really thought we were involved in a car accident. When I realized we wern’t involved I felt a huge sense of relief that we wern’t hit. At the time I didn’t understand why my boyfriend was driving away. I thought he should have been pulling over the car. I was in a state of confussion, everything was happening so quickly. Many foul words were screamed in panic by both of us. I had so many thoughts running through my head. I had my boyfriends mother voice in my heading echoing everything she has ever said to us before leaving the house with the car. She always warned us about driving safely and what would happen if we crashed the car. I also imagined my boyfriend’s father and how mad he would be athis wife for letting us take the car out. Now, I’m having trouble remembering all the events that took place. It was very fast, time fet as if it was speeding up. The setting is very simple, we were in a gold mini van driving east on the highway towards Long Island. There was a lot of traffic at around seven in the evening. It was a little slippery outside considering it had just rained. This is as much as I remember about my short story.

June 23, 2011

Narratology is a very useful thing to know. It can help one uderstand a novel or story better. One can get insight into what the author might have been thinking when writing the book. Narratology helps the reader see the layout and structure of the story through the narrator’s eyes/voice. This can be seen in the book, “The Lomentable Journey of Omaha Bigelow into the Impenetrable Loisaida Jungle” by Edgardo Vega Yunque. Vega uses some techniques to let the reader into the lives of the characters. He adds lot of Spanish words and accients in his text to let the audience know what type of people are in the story. He also adds his own voice in the novel. He is constantly interrupting the story to put his two sense in. Sometimes I like it but other times it got in the way of the story. Chapter 13 in the book is a crazy scence where the character calls the author. I found this to be so smart and creatively worked in. However this scene might have ruined the book for a lot of people becasuse now they know the characters where only acting a certain way. I really liked this book, it was a very fast read full of humor and great narratological techniques.

June 20, 2011

Three Stars.

Don Quixote by Cervantes was an original novel that can be considered a classic. It has definitely withheld the test of time. I liked the idea and concept of the novel. The fact that Don Quixote tries to put all the literature he has read to the test. The book had many funny parts; however it was very hard to get through. It was very long and overwhelming. If you can sit down and focus, it would be a good book. For me, there was too much extra stuff happening. I like when a novel gets straight to the point. I have found some of the story dry to read. I finished part one and don’t think I am going to continue to read part two.

June 20, 2011

Since I have been reading so many different styles of literature I have realized that humor doesn’t really change over time. Don Quixote by Cervantes was written in the 1600’s and I still find it funny today. There is a lot of gross and simple hunor within the novel. Everything that Don Quixote read left out important details, such as carrying money. Since the audinece sees how those peices of literature didn’t find it necessary to include discussing things as money and going to the bathroom, Cervantes makes it a point to put it in his novel. In Chapter twenty Sancho is telling a story. The audience quickly sees that Sancho is a bad storyteller. What is really funny in this chapter is the fact that Sancho has to go to the bathroom really badly. This happens to everyone but the way Cervantes writes it is so funny. The poop joke is an example of scatological humor. “Then he lifted up his shirt as best as he could, and thrust two ample buttocks into the night air. Once he’d done this, which he’d thought was all he needed to do to escape from his harrowing predicament, he found himself in another even worse plight: he thought that he wasn’t going to be able to relieve himself in silence, and he began to grit his teeth and hunch his shoulders and hold his breath for as long as he could, but in spite of all these precautions he was unfortunate enough, in the end, to make a small noise, quite different from the noise causing him such great fear.” (Cervantes, 160) Everything about the wording of this passage is hysterical.

June 20, 2011

Chapter 18 of “Don Quixote” by Cervantes is full of exciting and important things. This chapter is extremely humorous. The chapter moves very quickly because most of it is dialogue. The time seems to speed up becasue there is very little interruption from the narrator. When there is dialogue happening the reader is experiencing what is happening in real time. In narration it usually takes the reader long to read what’s happening, than it takes the characters to do. “With this he rode into the army […]” (Cervantes, 142) When narrator takes over, time seems to be moving faster becuase there is more action. During diallogue there isn’t must action happening. When I was reading this chapter I felt as if I was reading a play. Plays usually move pretty quickly and that’s why I felt this way. With all of th e dialogue that was occuring in this chapter I was also reminded of a play.

June 20, 2011

Chapter 17 in Don Quixote by Cervantes is a very interesting chapter full of narrations and dialogue. There is a lot of evidence of narrator’s discourse within the novel. Narrtor’s discourse is oral or writen text produced by an act of narrating. This is also telling the narrative made up statements from the story. In this chapter Don Quixote starts realizing made he needs certain things that arn’t mentioned in the books he is putting to test. The innkepper needs to get paid; however Don Quixote doesn’t carry money on him. This intails the innkeeper to take their suitcases. This chapter also shows the audience once again how much Sancho gets picked on. “And there, with Sancho in the middle of the blanket, they began to toss him up and down and to amuse themselves at his expense, as people do with dogs at a carnival time.” (Samperio, 135) Constantly Sancho is being abused by people and usually it is Don Quixote’s fault. The quote presented is in the present tense. However throughout this chapter the narrator is switching from the past to the present.

June 20, 2011

When a writer is writing a story they need to make many decisions on how they are going to structure the story. Some authors decide to start traditionaly in the begining while other starts their tale at the end. Many decide to start off using media res. Media res is when one starts off in the middle of the situation and by the end of the story everything makes sense. When I wrote my short story I decided to start off with something that my boyfriend’s mother said. I never use her real name in the story, always calling her Momma Rob. Next we asked for persmission to use the car; we were allowed. Throughout the whole story I included things that his mother has said to us in the past. My boyfriend and I got into the car and decided where we were going to eat. Next we got on the highway and headed there. Saw a black car speeding up and driving crazy. Saw a four car accident right next to us. After witnessing the car accident panic set in through my mind. I thought our car was hit, wasn’t understanding why my boyfriend wasn’t pulling over the car. The four car pile up just missed our car. Then we drove away. Both of us were scared and thankful that we wern’t involved in the car accident. I ended the story with a message saying becareful because there will always be a something that destroys everything.